Anzac Day

It was Anzac Day last Wednesday (the 25th of April) and this is a very important day in the Australian calendar. It is a public holiday and a national day of remembrance to honour the members of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) who fought at Gallipoli in the Ottoman Empire (Turkey) during World War I.
Anzac Day is a very big deal here. Traditionally there are dawn services all across Australia followed by marches through the state capitals by veterans and members of the Australian Defence Force and other groups. There is a special AFL match on each year at the MCG which always features Essendon against Collingwood, and much of the prematch build up is a further tribute to Australian forces overseas. There is a great tradition of young australians travelling to Gallipoli in Turkey to attend the dawn service there. This year tens of thousands of people braved wet and miserable conditions at 4am to attend the dawn service in Melbourne. There is constant coverage on TV of the various services, marches and tributes to the Anzacs.

Australians commemorating Anzac Day in Turkey

Anzac Day at the MCG

As an outsider the passion with which this particular part of Australian history is commemorated is rather bewildering. Anzac day is important to young and old Australians alike. The whole country comes to a standstill. On first impressions the scale of the commemoration seems way out of scale with the actual events (the campaign in Gallipoli didn't actually achieve it's goal of capturing Constantinople and while the 9,000 Australian lost there is significant, there were also 20,000 UK troops lost and Gallipoli doesn't get much of a mention in our Remembrance Day services). However this is missing the point. Anzac day is about so much more than just a small battle in a very distant land.


First of all Anzac day is about the legend and heroism of the Anzacs. It is about the brave young Australian and New Zealand men who fought for eight months in terrible conditions against a much larger force. It is about their sacrifice and their Anzac Spirit. This spirit has become one of the defining characteristics of modern Australia. It is about mateship and self reliance. Mateship is a very Australian concept that goes back beyond Gallipoli and the first settlers in the outback to perhaps as far as the early convicts who had to rely on their bonds with each other rather than the state for survival.
Anzac day also now commemorates not just the Anzacs but all Australian and New Zealand men and women who have been lost in military conflict over Australia's history. It commemorates those lost in World War II, in Vietnam and most recently in Afghanistan.
And perhaps what Anzac day seems to be as much about as a remembrance service for war dead is about the birth of the modern Australian nation. World War One was the first time that Australian men had to travel overseas and fight for their country. Though a part of the British Empire at the time they were not fighting for Britain but for themselves, for Australia. Anzac day is a call for Australians to stand up and be proud to be Australian, proud to be their own unique, independent country, that they would be willing to fight and die for if required.

As a Scottish person it makes more sense for me to relate the relevance of Anzac day to our own country's history (both the facts and the legends). Most obviously we have the likes of William Wallace or Robert the Bruce and much our our unique identity as Scottish people is tied up in these historical figures, now hundreds of years gone, who first defined what it is to be Scottish (mainly by fighting the English!). So with that in mind I think I am now understanding some of what it means to be an Australian better and the special significance that Anzac Day has for Australians.


Having said all this you may well be wondering what Julia and Isla and I did on Anzac day and the answer is not much! We watched some of the memorial services on TV and then I watched the football - Essendon vrs Collingwood at the MCG. I am now barracking for Essendon, seeing that is where I live, and it was very close. In fact it came down to the last minute when a Collingwood player kicked a final goal and won the game by 1 point. Isla was heart broken as she is now an Essendon fan too. We consoled each other with a cuddle.

shocked at the result

happy again!